Vine charcoal and compressed charcoal are traditional materials used for sketching on paper. Vine charcoal is never wrapped; compressed charcoal is sometimes wrapped in paper. Historically, figure drawings and landscape drawings were most frequently done with these materials. Today's artists use these materials for many different purposes on a large variety of surfaces. However, one aspect of the use of charcoal remains the same, namely the lack of permanence. Historically, charcoal drawings were not meant to be permanent. In many cases they were sketches (of, for instance, a scene or person in a fresco) which were thrown away when the fresco was completed. The concept of archiving charcoal drawings is not believed to have started until the 19th century. To date, there has never been a good solution to archiving. Spray fixatives (aerosol glues) have been the only option. These sprays are toxic; the associated air pressure blows some of the charcoal particles off the paper.
Charge responsive dye or pigments colorata, known as toner, are binder-coated pigment or colorstuff dispersed in a solvent or vehicle which includes trace amounts of a charge control or directing agent. A wide variety of pigments and/or dyestuffs are suitable for use in toners, including various carbon blacks, asphaltums, various oxides, sulfates, sulfides, carbonates, phosphides, phosphates, nitrates, nitrites, alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, and numerous organic derivatives of inorganic pigments. There is also a variety of proprietary colorants available, including, but not limited to, Phthalocyanine Blue, Phodamine B, and Benzidine Yellow. A wide variety of resinous or plastic binders are also used in toners, including various vinyl resins, regular and modified acrylic resin polymers, methacrylates, regular and modified alkyl resin types, vinyl acetate polymers, vinyl butryal polymers, styrene acrylates and polyester resins. A number of control agents are used, including colbalt naphthanate, manganese octosol, linseed oil, asphaltum, and ollyl acid phosphate. Toner solvents include a variety of inert, highly dielectric, paraffinic oleaginous materials such as denatured alcohol, acetone, wintergreen and Hancolite.
The use of used copier toner for tusche washes is disclosed in Superior Tusche Washes Using Dry Copier Toners; N. Semenoff, Leonardo, Journal of the International Society for the Arts Sciences and Technology; vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 71-77, 1987. In this article lithographic tusche washes made using dry copier toners are disclosed. Semenoff divides toners into 3 classes as follows:
Class A are those toners which are not affected by ordinary petroleum solvents and can be used in these solvents for washes over gum masks. Class B toners are the most appropriate for my work because many of my washes use a water medium. The big advantage in using Class B toners is that they can be set easily by such common solvents as camp fuel. Class C toners contain magnetic oxides and are of no use in this technique. PA1 Although toners in the image can be used as a printing base, they are not adequately bonded to the plate surface on setting the image. For this reason, I prefer to replace toner with the superior base-forming vinyl lacquer, or to do a partial washout with turpentine to produce a properly bonded image.
To make the tusche washes, the dry toner is first mixed with water. Sometimes a wetting agent is used. After mixing, the toner tusches are applied to a lithographic metal plate in the same manner as grease based tusches (e.g., with brush, puddling techniques or an air brush). The image produced by the toner tusche wash can be manipulated while wet. After the water (or other solvent) has evaporated, the dry powder on the plate can be further manipulated. The toner image can then be set by a variety of methods: (1) a heater such as an etcher's heating plate (care being taken not to warp the thin lithography plate); (2) using the vapors of the laquer thinner and acetone to soften the toner particles sufficiently so that they adhere to the plate surface; (3) flowing solvent (such as camp fuel or turpentine) over the dry powder without disturbing the particles; and (4) use of an air brush to wet the toner with a sufficient amount of solvent. The "Wick Solvent Method" (No. 3, above) is preferred by the author as the solvent flows gently over the image to set it. The toner reacts quickly with the solvent. After setting the plate is etched. The method also works on stone. Finally, the author notes that:
Semenoff has also made, on a non-commercial basis, sticks of used toner for use in lithography only. These sticks are made by compressing toner powder under high pressure. The details of the process are not otherwise known to the inventors. Seminoffs compressed toner comes in a block of four. For an artist to use this material he/she must break one piece off the whole block, not unlike that of breaking a piece off a KitKat.RTM. bar. These blocks are heavy, densely compact and quite brittle. These characteristics result in damage in shipping, from dropping, or from just simple use (breaking one stick off the block without damaging it or the others is quite a challenge).
Aside from the washes and compressed pieces of toner described above, in the fields of drawing, making lithography plates and making plates used for etchings, no other use of copier toner is known to the inventors.
In use in xerography, toners tend to become depleted of one or more of their essential components with relatively short use. The usual treatment of this depleted mixture is for the user to discard it as waste. In search of a solution to this problem, various methods of processing waste toner are disclosed in the prior art. U.S. Pat. No. 3,924,566, issued to Dennie, discloses the reclamation of waste toner by solidifying it through heat within plastic bottles located within the copy machine. Also using heat to melt the toner, for solidification and disposal, is disclosed U.S. Pat. No. 5,136,338, issued to Greenaway et al. This latter patent describes a system to collect waste particles on a heated rotating drum, scraping the melted toner onto a second rotating drum, and collecting the toner, after cooling for disposal. Other methods involve separation procedures, such as disclosed U.S. Pat. No. 4,052,298, issued to Bradley. This patent utilizes solution and selective extraction to isolate the particular components of the toner for reuse.
Other than recycling separated component parts for reuse, none of these patents teach or suggest any use for the waste toner after treatment, other than throwing it away. Furthermore, none of the above-referenced patents anticipate producing the solid waste in a form which can be used to mark surfaces, as the multiple heat exposures, temperatures (i.e., the 250.degree. F. of Greenaway et al.), and time employed results in completely hardened material which cannot be used to mark a surface. Indeed, Greenaway et al. comments that the melted toner is "as inert as any other solid block of plastic material." See col. 6, line 23. Finally, the material is in a form which is inconvenient for marking, as it is located inside a waste container, or scraped off a heating drum in lumps.
The present invention differs from the prior art in providing an artists' marking material made from waste toner, a method of forming the artist's material into a solid state or chalk, and devices used to produce the artist's marking material. Alternately, the marking material can be made from new toner. The produced material is versatile. Primarily it is used for traditional drawings. However, it can also be used for the marking of plates used in lithography and etching. The produced image is easily fixed, with heat in the range of 200-250.degree. F., thus avoiding the problems associated with the fixative spray products now used by artists when sealing a charcoal drawing. The material of the present invention has the highly advantageous characteristic of being fixed to any heat-resistant surface through exposure to relatively low temperatures for short periods of time. This characteristic allows the material of the present invention to be easily adapted for use in multiple artistic methods including, but not limited to, drawing, lithography, and etching.